Crucial contributions

MATTHEW JONES is impressed by a new account of the Manhattan Project that spotlights the role of British scientists in developing nuclear weapons

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Almost exactly 80 years ago, the world’s first atomic test explosion shattered the quiet of a New Mexico morning. A few weeks later, and in the space of a few days, nuclear weapons were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan with devastating effect.

The Alamogordo test on 16 July 1945 is said to have ushered in the nuclear age, demonstrating American science and engineering prowess by bringing the Manhattan Project to a successful conclusion, as shown most recently in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning 2023 film Oppenheimer.